Looking like a scientist

3 March 2020 by 3 Comments

Dr Emma Beckett is an NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow and Lecturer in Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

She is also a passionate science communicator, aiming to empower consumers to make evidence-based decisions.

She can be found @synapse101 on Twitter, @DrEmmaBeckett on Facebook and @emmie_101 on Instagram. Her ORCID is 0000-0002-8888-3789.

Photo courtesy of Emma Beckett.

Photo courtesy of Emma Beckett.

I have a wardrobe full of food-print dresses, hundreds of pairs of food shaped earrings, a collection of food-themed hair accessories, and even a handbag shaped like a lemon wedge.

If you follow me on social media, you will see a new combination of foods multiple times a week. But I’m not a fashion account –  I’m a Food and Nutrition Scientist and Science Communicator. I say, “Come for the food fashion, stay for the food science!”

I didn’t deliberately set out to “build a brand” or become a caricature of myself, but when I stop and reflect on how I ended up here, I’m not sad and I’m not surprised. I am living my best Ms Frizzle life and loving it.

I’m an identical twin

Having a genetic clone, I’ve always used hair, makeup, clothes and accessories to reduce confusion and set myself apart from my sister.

After I finished my PhD and started my fellowship, I went through a phase of “dressing professionally” as I tried to mimic what I saw in the workplace around me. I felt like I lost myself for a little bit in that time, looking in the mirror I didn’t see me, I saw my twin sister. Read more of this post

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Romance your writing

11 February 2020 by 4 Comments

James Burford is a Lecturer in Research Education and Development at La Trobe University.

He researches too many things. 

Recent preoccupations include: academic conferences, academic mobility, gender and sexuality in education and the felt experience of doctoral education.

Tweet him @jiaburford and find his writing at the blog he co-edits with Emily Henderson, Conference Inference. His ORCID is 0000-0002-0707-7401.

Photo by Element5 Digital | unsplash.com

Recently, I found myself sitting on a panel offering advice to graduate researchers who are trying to finish their theses. Even though I wrote my own PhD about the feelings involved in writing a PhD, it is easy to feel inadequate to the task of advice-giving.

Theses are so intricate, so specific, so personally transformative, that you are never entirely sure if you and another becoming-doctor are even talking about the same kind of thing! (See my thesis here, and a blog post about it here)

Sitting on this panel, I decided to be as honest as I could about the lumpy rhythm of my own doctoral experience.

My doctoral life involved multiple moves of house, city and country. It was punctuated by a relationship break-up and new love, part-time then full-time work at universities, and intense care work for a sick relative, which resulted in changes to my candidature (see more on this here – subscription required). My doctoral research was also intellectually challenging in ways I never really anticipated, leaving my brain bent into new shapes and leading me to question beliefs I’d long attached myself to. It is, as many doctoral education researchers have written, as if an important threshold (subscription required) has been crossed. There is no going back to pre-PhD me. Read more of this post

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How do you start a research network?

1 October 2019 by 2 Comments

Image from Mark Fletcher-Brown | unsplash.com

We had a question recently from Ely asking for pragmatic advice on starting an international research network. Alyssa Sbisa and Sally Grace wrote “Setting up a professional network” a while back and that post has heaps of relevant good advice that I’d strongly encourage you to check out!

I’d written previously on building a research network on a shoestring, and much of that still applies. I realise now, however, that the earlier post presumed a network that needed cohering and development.

I think Ely is after something that addresses a much earlier step: how do you even get a research network started?

This post aims to tackle this, and would welcome others’ input on the topic. I’m speaking very much from my HaSS (Humanities/Social Sciences) point of view, and realise that other areas may have quite different contexts and ways of doing things. One of the things I should make clear from the start is that I’m talking about how to start a research network with few to zero resources. I’m not talking about setting something up with a ready cache of funding, or the need to access such a cache.

These are the key things you need if you want to start a research network: Read more of this post

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How having kids made me a better academic

19 March 2019 by 2 Comments

Sarah Hayes is an urban archaeologist and material culture researcher who focuses on the role possessions play in quality of life and social mobility. Her current research traces the material life trajectories of individuals and families during Victoria’s gold rush.

She is a current holder of a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) and Senior Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University.

Sarah has written for The Conversation and tweets from @SarahHResearch.

Photo by Sarah Hayes | All rights reserved.

Photo by Sarah Hayes | All rights reserved.

I suffered a serious lack of academic mojo when I came back to work after maternity leave for my second daughter.

I’d had to start her in childcare two months before my maternity leave ended so we wouldn’t miss out on a spot and, as is inevitable when a small kid starts childcare, she was constantly sick for about four months. Throw in her asthma, and you can imagine what a stressful time it was. The snowballing of head colds meant she weaned herself overnight at ten months (it might sound silly, but this was to be my last baby and the sudden loss of that closeness with her hit me hard). Though she had been a good sleeper, all the illness meant I was back to an average of three hours’ sleep a night.

The demands of modern academia are complex and at times frustrating. I found myself heartily questioning the purpose of my research and whether I wanted to be an academic. Archaeology wasn’t going to save any lives, so why exactly was I putting my daughter through all this childcare-induced illness? Read more of this post

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The joy of Wiki

16 October 2018 by 1 Comment

Photo by Rodolfo Mari | unsplash.com

Photo by Rodolfo Mari | unsplash.com

Earlier this year, I started a ‘Shut up and Wiki’ group at our university. It has been running now for over six months.

Many universities, often with researchers working with the Library, are showing their Wiki-friendly faces with wonderful edit-a-thons, Wiki-bombs, Wiki masterclasses, etc. I wanted to get us in on that action.

The initial idea with the group was to have a set time to meet up with like-minded folk (of all stripes and levels: academic, professional, student, profs, whatevs) and run the session like a standard ‘shut up and write’ session but with everyone working on their own Wiki projects, edits, or pages. Because we have a cosy group of stalwarts, the pomodoros don’t really need to be set and we just end up editing and chatting along as we see fit. It works, it’s fun, and we’re building bridges with other institutions around the these kinds of sessions.

Most importantly, we’ve got a great little group together that would otherwise not have come together in this way.

This post is about creating collegial spaces within our institutions, at a time when finding joy in what we do can be a challenge.  Read more of this post

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Surviving your feminist research project

13 March 2018 by 10 Comments

Dr Meagan Tyler is a Senior Lecturer at RMIT University and a research theme leader (gender, equality and diversity) in the Centre for People, Organisation and Work (CPOW).

Her work is focused on using feminist theory and methods to address gender inequality and violence against women in a range of contexts, from emergency management to the sex industry. You can read more of Meagan’s work here. 

She tweets (occasionally) @DrMeaganTyler.

There are always joys and challenges in undertaking research, but there are particular joys and challenges associated with conducting feminist research, and there is often precious little space in formal academic contexts to discuss them.

In part to address this absence, in October 2017, the Feminist Forum series in Melbourne included a session on ‘How to Survive Your Feminist Research Project’, and this post is based on Meagan Tyler’s contribution to that session.

Photo by Alex Mazzarello | unsplash.com >> "Protestors in Vancouver, BC as part of Women’s March on Washington, Vancouver chapter."

Photo by Alex Mazzarello | unsplash.com >> “Protestors in Vancouver, BC as part of Women’s March on Washington, Vancouver chapter.”

Most of my colleagues don’t know what it’s like to expect resistance every time they present their work.

I recently found out that many of them simply expect polite applause or – worst case scenario – a curly question from a grumpy professor.

They don’t generally expect to confront accusations of prudery, rape threats on Twitter, attempts at no-platforming, or orchestrated campaigns from men’s rights activists.

But for many feminist researchers these experiences are all too common. It can feel as though there is a significant divide between our working lives and those of non-feminist colleagues. Read more of this post

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Lessons from the Hill

24 October 2017 by Leave a comment

Dr Taylor Winkleman recently completed a stint as a Legislative Assistant in the office of United States Senator Edward Markey after serving a year in the same office as an American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)/American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. Her portfolio included space policy, military and veterans issues, human rights, and foreign policy, with a particular emphasis on global health and trafficking of both humans and wildlife. Upon leaving the Senate, Taylor founded Winkleman Consulting, LLC, and is now consulting on the same issues, with an emphasis on the intersection of commercial space, global health, and humanitarian crises.

Born in Santa Cruz, California, Taylor completed the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine’s dual degree program in 2016, earning both her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Masters of Public Health with an emphasis in public health policy. Prior to beginning her veterinary training, she served 6 years in the United States Army as an Arabic linguist and intelligence professional. During her academic career, she worked as a freelance journalist and photographer.

Her professional interests include international development, zoonotic disease prevention, economics, One Health, Planetary Health, and commercial space policy. Taylor tweets from @T_Winkleman.

The Research Whisperer was approached by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to feature a couple of their great fellowship stories. We were happy to showcase the fantastic opportunities available to scientists through their programs. If you’re interested in applying for the AAAS S&T Policy Fellowship, applications are due November 1! Please note: you must hold US citizenship, or dual citizenship from US and another country.

If you know of non-US programs that do similar things, please comment with links so that your colleagues can be aware of them and follow them up!

Taylor Winkleman (LEFT) and #fellowfellow (fellow AAAS fellow) Dr. Emma Locatelli, attending science talks given by two OTHER #fellowfellows, Dr. Rebecca Reeseman and Dr. Kirstin Neff at a monthly event called NerdNiteDC. [Photo courtesy of Taylor Winkleman]

Taylor Winkleman (LEFT) and #fellowfellow (fellow AAAS fellow) Dr. Emma Locatelli, attending science talks given by two OTHER #fellowfellows, Dr. Rebecca Reeseman and Dr. Kirstin Neff at a monthly event called NerdNiteDC. [Photo courtesy of Taylor Winkleman]

The absolute worst moment that I experienced during my time in the United States Senate (the Hill) was during a softball game. While playing catcher, a collision at home plate sent me flying through the air and I landed in the dirt. On my head.

So, there I was, lying in the dirt, my ear bleeding, my arm bruised, with my head ringing from what I was almost certain was a concussion, and I knew one thing with utter certainty: I was going to have to keep playing. We were behind by ten runs in the third inning. We were certainly going to lose the game but if I couldn’t keep going we would be forced to forfeit. I got up, shook it off, and kept playing.

We definitely lost that game.

Thinking back on it, I can understand how many on the Hill would see that as a metaphor for politics, where you often find yourself fighting a battle you seem guaranteed to lose, getting knocked down, and having to get back up. My time as a policy fellow began in an optimistic September of 2016.

Now, in 2017, the situation for science on the Hill and in the federal government could be better.

In some ways, this seems to be the worst of times. Read more of this post

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